Thursday, February 16, 2012

Red Velvet Brownies...

Do you know that I have a board totally dedicated to Red Velvet on Pinterest? I've got it bad! I don't indulge very often (aside from Red Velvet frozen yogurt at Berri Yummi - I do that far too often), but when I do, I go all out. And on Valentine's Day, it's a given. Last year we did cupcakes. This year....Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies. I can't even tell you how amazing they are. I'll link you up with the recipe at the end of this post. First, I have a fun page to share....

This was on the Crate blog for the Paper Heart feature. I can't even tell you how much I love this line. That yellow diagonal stripe paper is one of my all time faves!

I punched a strip of it with my circle punch and made little windows for some cute little chipboard bits.

The punched circles and more chipboard and sticker bits made a great frame for the pictures. Oh, and guess what my buddy is making?? You got it, Red Velvet cupcakes! These were our pics from Valentine's Day last year.

And now, the recipe.....

The image and following recipe are from www.sweetpeaskitchen.comThey are seriously the most amazing things ever! (No, I didn't eat half a tray of them on Valentine's Day!) Run to the kitchen and make them right now!

1.Preheat oven to 350F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 8 inch metal baking pan. Put a long piece of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan, letting the parchment extend up two sides of the pan and overhang slightly on both ends. (This will make it easy to remove the bars from the pan after they have baked.) Butter the parchment.2.In a small, heatproof bowl, melt butter and chocolate together. Stir until combined and very smooth. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.3.In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and red food coloring. Add chocolate mixture and stir until smooth. Add flour and salt and stir until just combined and no streaks of dry ingredients remain.4.Pour into prepared pan and spread into an even layer.5.To prepare cheesecake mixture, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla extract in a medium bowl until smooth. Distribute the cheesecake mixture in 8 dollops over batter in the pan. Swirl in with a knife or spatula.6.Bake for 35-40 minutes, until brownies and cheesecake are set. A knife inserted into the cheesecake mixture should come out clean and the edges will be lightly browned.7.Let cool completely in pan on a cooling rack before lifting out the parchment paper to remove the brownies.

So, that's it for today. If you'd like to be entered for the giveaway I talked about in the post below, you can enter until midnight tonight - Thursday.

Be sure to stop back on Saturday morning, as something special will be going on and I will post the winner.